by Matt Hilton
I yelled a warning. My mouth didn’t open. The scream was for no one’s ears but mine and for the thing racing towards me with singular intent. The thing that wore the features of my dead brother, Cash. It jerked to a halt, rising up over me, head swaying like that of a cobra dancing to the charmer’s flute. This time I did open my mouth to shriek, and the ethereal creature dove at me, screeching likewise. It forced its way into my mouth, my throat, then deep inside, coiling and tightening around my soul. Whatever diabolical rites he’d been practicing, whichever demented devil he’d been offering up the sacrifices to, it had allowed him to come back from death – but not in a way in which he had ever expected. He’d been granted immortality in spirit, but he was trapped within the mortal coil of his greatest enemy.
SEVEN
Broom’s Cottage, Connor’s Island
One of those ironies of life: a cobbler’s child often goes barefoot. It’s the same idea when you see a builder’s home and there are slates missing off the roof, or there are cracks in the brickwork. The craftsman is far too busy with his workload to look after his own abode or, as it was with the cobbler, to make shoes for his children. The same could have been said for me when I was involved with Rezpect Sports; though we designed and retailed fashionable sports clothing, I was never seen in shorts and vest, and God forbid you’d see me in a tracksuit.
My point being?
Well, the last thing I expected when approaching Paul Broom’s home was something like the witch’s house out of Hansel and Gretel. As a writer of horror and dark fantasy tales, I knew that his imagination leaned towards the gothic and macabre, but I also knew him for enjoying his luxuries and the niceties his modest wealth brought him. This small crofter’s cottage with its time bowed walls and sunken roofline came as a bit of a shock. The dilapidated building wasn’t my main surprise. It was the wood and bone chimes that hung from the eaves, the ominous scarecrow in the garden, the leering skulls surmounting the gateposts that gave me pause. Not to mention the crimson pentagram etched into a panel decorating the front door.
The windows were blacked out. Or maybe he’d simply dropped the blinds and the interior was in darkness. If not for the torch Broom played intermittently in my direction, the scene would have been in full darkness. The fact that he flashed the torch over these quirks of exterior décor meant that he intended for me to grasp the overall impression he’d tried to achieve with his spooky props. I shook my head at it all, a smile dawning where previously there had been none.
From beyond the house I could hear the swish of surf on a pebble beach, and the wind rasped the boughs of imported trees in a copse partly concealing the cottage garden. The scarecrow, topped off by the skull of a deer, creaked on its pole. Also, the wind chimes clattered in discordant symphony. Above all, I could hear Broom whistling Strangers in the Night. The guy was such a ham.
Certain that he was aware of my approach, I called out, “Hallooo!”
“Hallooo, right back at you!” He was at the gate to his property, torch in one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. By the amount of rain falling, I guessed that the coffee would be well watered down by now. As I approached, I saw him set the mug on top of one of the gate stoop skulls. Then he strode towards me, meeting me with arms outstretched. “I was beginning to think you’d had a change of mind and decided not to come visit.”
“I expected to be here sooner than this,” I told him. Then, in my best Bugs Bunny impression, “Musta took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”
“But you’re here, anyway,” he said. “And that’s all that matters.”
I’m moderately tall, but Broom stands a head taller again. Not what you expect of an academic or someone who spends most of his time at a computer keyboard. He puts me in mind of a professional wrestler with his stature, his beefy shoulders and arms, and his flowing blond hair. Nothing at all to do with the bear hug he caught me in and lifted me off my feet. He squeezed me with ill-restrained affection.
“I guess it gets lonely out here, huh?”
“I am so happy to see you!” He grinned, giving me another squeeze, the torch in his hand uncomfortable against my lower spine as he bounced me up and down.
“Alright if I breath now?” I wheezed.
“Ha! Ha! Breathing is for weaklings!” he said. I swear I could feel my ribs cracking.
“Enough…pleeeaase…”
Finally he let me down. I swayed like I was back on the ferry again. Broom gripped his mug and torch in one hand and placed the other in my lower back to steer me towards the front door. I couldn’t have resisted if I tried. I was propelled over a path of crushed shells, but my feet barely made a sound. In comparison, Broom’s limping gait of crunch and drag reminded me that, as powerful as he looked, one leg was partially crippled as a result of a head on collision between motorbike and tree. Maybe it was this accident that left him perched in front of a computer instead of grappling in the squared circle. More likely, it was down to his gentle heart.
“Got a huge pan of soup on the stove. Thought you might be hungry after travelling all day.”
“I’m okay,” I said, but the thought of a bowl-or-three of Broom’s homemade soup had my stomach gurgling in anticipation. I paused at the door. Nodded at the pentagram. “I like what you’ve done to the place. Is it all your own work or did you hire a P.R. consultant?”
“No extracting the urine, old fellow.” He reached out with thick fingers and pulled loose what I now saw was contact paper. He crumpled the pentagram in his fist. “I had a photo shoot with some journalists from Dark Empires magazine. Had to titivate the place so it fit with their readers’ expectations of ‘The Master of Dark Fantasy’. I just haven’t gotten round to clearing up after them, yet.”
“Wasn’t that about two months ago?”
Broom grinned. “Hey! I’m a busy man. Any way, it gives the residents of Conn something to talk about. For some unknown reason they think I’m a tad strange.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I said, acerbic as you like, but Broom didn’t notice. Or, if he did, he chose to ignore my wit. He pushed me into the cottage. He flicked on lights.
If the exterior was The Brothers Grimm, then the interior was Essex chic. The living room was all cream carpet, white leather upholstery, metal and glass trimmings, and a plasma TV screen mounted on the wall that would put some cinemas to shame. The space looked like a showroom for House and Home. Didn’t appear lived in.
“I’m going to drip all over your carpet,” I warned.
“No you’re not, Carter. The kitchen is this way.” He steered me to the right, up a couple of steps and into a kitchen redolent with the odours of culinary delights. The kitchen was large, as equally splendid as the living room in the way it had been decked out. The difference was the homeliness of it all, the books spread on counter tops, the dishes in the sink awaiting transfer to the dishwasher. The huge pot of soup bubbling on the hob. Broom bustled past, placing his mug amongst the crockery in the sink, the torch on a counter top.
I stripped out of my coat and Broom hung it on a hook at the rear door. My chino trousers were wet from mid-thigh, testament of the efficacy of my raincoat. Broom offered to put them in the dryer, but I declined. Didn’t fancy sitting about in my boxer shorts whilst they went through a cycle.
He tossed me a towel and I scrubbed the rain from my hair. He was also streaming, his blond hair hanging in ringlets round his broad face. Big, tusky teeth set in a grin.
“I really am pleased that you are here,” he said.
I sat at his table. “You didn’t doubt me, did you?”
“Not for a second. But it is such a long way. I’ve put you to a lot of trouble.”
“Planes, trains and automobiles,” I said. “Not to mention the ferry ride from hell.”
“And a long walk in this shitty weather.”
On cue a drip formed on the end of my nose. “Is it always this wet?”
“Not always,” he said, a spark of mischievousness lighting his features.
“There was one day last August when the sun got out for an hour.”
We both chuckled. Broom took the towel and scrubbed his own hair. Satisfied, he shook out his frizzy mane. Brian May eat your heart out. Then he set to the pan of soup, ladling enough for ten men into each bowl. He brought mine over, pushed some crusty bread at me. “Tuck in, Carter. Don’t go resting on formality.”
“Your wish is my command, O Master.” I went at the soup like a man possessed - if you’ll excuse the pun.
Broom sat opposite, spoon poised as he studied me. He sniffed. “You’ve lost weight. Have you been eating healthily?”
“I eat when I’m hungry.” Indicating my bowl, I said, “It just isn’t usually as wholesome as this.”
“Burgers and shit, I bet.”
A shrug of my shoulders.
“What about sleep?” Broom asked, as if he was my personal agony aunt. “Are you managing to get plenty of rest?” He lifted his spoon and aimed it at me. “And no blasé answers like ‘I sleep when I’m tired’, Carter.”
Staring at my bowl, I admitted, “Sleep doesn’t come so easy when your lodger is up all night.”
“Are you taking anything to help you sleep? I could give you…”
I jerked upright. “No.” Then, not so obstructive this time, I went on, “I’m still using the preparation you told me about.”
My preparation. A homeopathic tonic that Broom gave me the formula to. It did allow for a more restful night than I could achieve without it. Saying that, for all I knew, the ingredients I’d had mixed for me by a Chinese herbalist could have been sugar and talcum powder. I couldn’t deny the preparation offered nothing more than a placebo effect.
Broom wasn’t finished yet: “It’s important that you look after your health, Carter. Make sure you continue with the preparation. Are you also continuing with the exercises I set you?”
Nodding affirmative, I said, “I do them most nights-”
“Most nights aren’t enough. You must do them every night.”
“You didn’t let me finish, Broom. I was about to say that I do them most nights, but do them every morning without fail.” I gave him a lop-sided smirk. “Don’t worry, I’m not shirking.”
He placed his spoon in his soup to give me a slow clap. “Bravo. I’m pleased about that.” His gaze grew intense. “It’s imperative that you keep up your guard. The only way you can do that is by following the regimen of mind control exercises and meditation I set you. Show Cash the least sign of weakness and he’ll exploit it.”
Paraphrasing the gospel of Saint Matthew, I quoted back to Broom the verse he’d commanded I absorb and make my life ethos. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a hungry lion, searching for souls to devour.”
Highly pleased at the devotion to study of his number one pupil, Broom munched vigorously at a chunk of bread. Around the mouthful he said, “Knew that I could depend on you, Carter.”
He wasn’t simply referring to my continued self-control practice. I asked, “Did you think for even one second that I wouldn’t come when you asked?”
“Honestly?” He seesawed his head. “You don’t owe me, Carter. It is your prerogative to refuse.”
“How could I possibly refuse?” I held his gaze. He puffed out his cheeks, lifted his shoulders. I placed my spoon in the now empty bowl. “After everything you did for me, the least I could do was answer your call for help.”
“Be that as it may. But you’re not beholden to me. It’s a lot that I’ve asked, dragging you all the way up here to the middle of nowhere.”
“Broom. You can deny it all you want, but I do owe you. If it wasn’t for you, I would still be stuck in a mental hospital.” I exhaled. “Makes me wonder…maybe I’d be so far gone by now that I’d be permanently sedated and locked in a padded room, staring into space and drooling on my chest.”
“I doubt it would have come to that.”
“Possibly not,” I said. “But only because I’d’ve taken a swan dive from the hospital roof before it got that bad.”
“You’re not the suicidal type,” Broom argued.
“No. I’m not. But who knows what would have become of me if you hadn’t intervened?”
Broom lifted our bowls, headed back to the stove. He served up another portion for ten. With his back to me, he asked, “When I first sought you out, you do realise that it was for purely selfish and not altruistic reasons?”
“I know that your doctorate in psychology gave you certain privileges. It gave you access to patients in order that you could conduct research for your novels. You told me, Broom. Right at the onset, that you wished to speak to me due to my unique case of - as you put it - disassociation-persona syndrome. You believed that it would make interesting subject matter for a character in one of your stories.”
“I never did write that story.” Broom returned with my second helping of soup. “I realised that you weren’t half as interesting as I’d originally thought.”
He was joking, and I laughed along with him.
He went on, “When I discovered what was truly plaguing you, it became my personal mission to get you out of there and on to the correct course of treatment.”
“When you first approached my doctors with that in mind, I thought that you were going to end up locked in the room next to me.”
Broom laughed. “I’m a little peculiar, I’ll give you that, but I’m not ready for the nut ward yet.”
“Nut ward?”
“Please take that comment in the spirit it was attended.”
I waved it off; I’d only been joking, anyway.
“I had to pull a few strings, call in a few favours. In the end you were released into my care. It was only pertinent that I then gave you a place to live whilst you achieved some level of control over your problem. I brought you to me; I helped you because I had to as much as I wanted to. The pleasure, as they say, was all mine. Ergo, you owe me nothing.”
I shook my head. “You went way beyond helping me, Broom. You saved my life. For what it is, you saved my sanity.”
“But I haven’t fully cured you.”
I stared at him. His words hadn’t been a simple disclaimer. They were loaded with a certain amount of anticipation.
“You haven’t fully cured me, no,” I said, wondering what it was he hadn’t added. “You have given me the strength to cope, though. And that is a gift I can’t begin to thank you for.”
“Your thanks are given by your presence here,” Broom assured me.
“Least I could do.” We were going round in circles. Getting nowhere nearer to breaching his reason for asking me to his remote hideaway.
As though coming to the same conclusion, Broom set aside his food. He sat watching me. I returned his attention. Finally, his voice at a whisper, he said, “There is something very wrong on this island, Carter. Something that requires your very special skills.”
A sense of foreboding tightened my chest. Unable to shrug it off, even though I’d somehow known what he was about to say, I said, “Go on.”
“Something has returned.”
I stared into my bowl. The residue of vegetables and meat stock was all that remained. Not the most ideal auger’s scrying pool. Still, it worked for me.
“And you’ve asked me here as you want me to stop it,” I said.
EIGHT
Near Ura Taing, Connor’s Island
Catherine Stewart was beginning to worry. And there was no doubt in her mind that her concern was justified. That the house was empty wasn’t the source of her unease, her children were wild spirits and often did their own thing following the school day. Daily they would arrive home like dervishes on a mission to create uproar, their shoes and uniforms discarded where they fell, their satchels slung over the backs of the chairs in the kitchen. A quick bite to eat, the dirty cutlery and utensils dumped in the sink, homework rattled off with Kalashnikov rapidity, then they would shoot off to secret parts of the island known only to them and
their friends. On this remote island – where the crime statistics was practically nil - her children were allowed more freedom than if they lived elsewhere, but it came with a caveat. They had to be home by eight pm and in bed by nine. It was now nearing ten o’clock. It was the tidiness of the house that told her that her children had not returned as instructed. And that did not bode well. It did not bode well, at all.
As a single mother it had been a chore for Catherine to raise her bairns in a manner befitting the staunch moral ethics expected of an islander. She’d managed this by being very strict in her instilling of rules - even if she wasn’t in fact the dragon her children often made her out to be. Her rules were simple; no thieving, no lying, no bullying, no foul language, and you only go out once you’ve had your tea and your homework is done. She knew Jimmy struggled with her first four commandments, but never did he shirk on the latter two. Especially not the one about filling his stomach. Bethany, on the other hand, wouldn’t dare to go against her will in regards of any of the rules, and would ensure that her mother knew that she’d fully complied by leaving behind evidence of her meal, and the completed homework set out in the living room for her mother’s perusal. It didn’t matter that this only made Catherine’s workload all the more difficult on top of the eight hours late shift she’d already put in at the fish cleaning plant down at Ura Taing on the island’s southern tip.
The sink was as empty as it had been this morning after Catherine had cleaned away the breakfast dishes and seen the bairns off to school. She tasted bile in her throat. If it had been the summer months she could have easily believed that the children had been slow in returning home and had been caught up in some adventure or other. But it was full dark - had been for hours - and the rain and wind would ordinarily be sufficient to send the kids scurrying for home. Something was terribly wrong. Mother’s intuition? No, logic told her so. Her children were in danger.